There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a read more

Art should be appreciated with passion and violence, not with a tepid, deprecating elegance that fears the censoriousness of a common room.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves read more

Just as some plants bear fruit only if they don't shoot up too high, so in practical arts the leaves and flowers of theory must be pruned and the plant kept close to its proper soil- experience.

It is characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.

It is characteristic of all movements and crusades that the psychopathic element rises to the top.

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own read more

It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own image. Rather does he create Him in the image of his cravings and dreams- in the image of what man wants to be. God making could be part of the process by which a society realizes its aspirations: it first embodies them in the conception of a particular God, and then proceeds to imitate that God. The confidence requisite for attempting the unprecedented is most effectively generated by the fiction that in realizing the new we are imitating rather than originating. Our preoccupation with heaven can be part of an effort to find precedents for the unprecedented.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

From the saintly and single-minded idealist to the fanatic is often but a step.

The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow read more

The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.